Petra's Face Is Hilarious
by Jayfeattheris Awesome
Summary: Following the events of Fever, Petra and Variks investigate the resurfacing of a dangerous House of Rain artifact on Mars. Martin, joining them on a separate task of his own, bonds with everyone's favorite Eliksni through the classic situation of being drunk with laughter. Fever-Heartbusters intermission. Two-shot.
1. Petra's Face!

**RISE OF IRON EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!**

* * *

She had no idea what was so hilarious. For some reason, the boys were absolutely hysterical.

The Warlock, Martin Anton, had been without purpose since his broken-legged best friend, Silverhawk, had been forcibly confined at the Tower for medical leave(against her will). A Crow probe had sent back data regarding a possible House of Rain artifact being held somewhere on Mars by a small House of Wolves splinter group.

Variks, upon seeing the feed from the probe, had deemed the artifact as "too dangerous" for non-Fallen hands to touch. She didn't trust that. According to him, he'd been tracking that particular artifact for a while. He didn't know much about it; just what he'd managed to pull out of some very vague old House of Rain banners.

Namely that the artifact caused pain to anyone who wasn't an eliksni, or something like that. He'd said the banner was damaged almost beyond repair, and that he was lucky he'd managed to even get that much out of it.

She still didn't trust him.

The Queen, still recovering from her illness, had yet to have Uldren send Petra back to the Tower. She had the feeling that the Prince had something to do with this. Perhaps he'd put a good word in on her performance during the crisis? Or perhaps the Queen was waiting until the top military commanders were well enough to take her place as the Prince's "sidekick" for the remainder of his temporary rule? Either way, ever since the Prince had returned, it had been field assignment after field assignment.

The _Cirrus_ and her crew were, as of the cure's distribution, the healthiest military asset the Reef had at the moment. As the Prince gallivanted around Venus and Earth searching for the cure, Petra and her hastily-assembled and decontaminated crew had worked with them from a distance. She'd coordinated several attacks to aid the Prince and his quest, and all of them had met with success; even Silverhawk's risky-albeit clever-plan to draw out the House of Wolves' Ketch.

Upon their return to the Reef, Prince Uldren-the very _exhausted_ Prince Uldren-had been pounded with duty after duty. Getting the cure distributed had been chaos in some places, especially the poorer districts of the Reef, where damage from the Reef Wars was still being repaired. He'd had to go in multiple times with a peacekeeping force of Crows(both person and robo-bird), and all the while keep a saddle on the Wolves that served the Queen.

According to him, working with the Wolves was like pulling a five-year-old's loose tooth. However, as the disease appeared not to affect the Fallen, they'd become necessary in keeping things in order, with so few awoken guards around. But when a riot did break out, it was a scramble to get the violence-prone Fallen out of the way and replaced with much more peaceful peacekeepers. It had, _very_ few times so far, escalated to the point in which the Fallen were needed in order to keep things from getting too out of hand. Those few times, Variks and his two sole housemates were the only ones the Prince trusted with that duty.

But she still didn't trust Variks.

It had been a week and a half since Uldren's return to the Reef. At first, hailed as a hero, but soon yelled at as the full weight of a temporary reign, during a crisis, no less, fell down on top of him. Every moment of every day since then had been "cure this" and "riot that". It was clear to her the moment he set foot on the docks at the Royal City, all he wanted to do was go be with his sister for a little while, and perhaps catch up on his sleep.

Petra would _kill_ for some sleep right about now. With so many commanders incapacitated, her and Variks were left as the highest-ranking individuals at Prince Uldren's disposal. She'd been sent all over, eliminating known threats outside the Reef before they became a problem to their incapacitated armies. Uldren had Crow probes out all over the system, monitoring for Guardian activity. There were few signs of life, and where there were, they were usually lone Hunters or the occasional lonely Fireteam that had gotten stuck out in the wild when the City went on quarantine lockdown.

She didn't know how long it had been since she last got a full night's sleep. She knew Variks had barely slept at all as well.

Which was why it was so strange, the scene she walked in on that afternoon.

Martin Anton was a young Warlock of about 5ft.10", with sandy-brown hair that stuck out everywhere, a child-like face, wide, leaf-green eyes, and a pair of round, wire glasses that looked like the bridge had been sautered back together more than a few times. At this time, he wore deep scarlet robes, with black pants, boots, and gloves, and a dark blue, padded, armor-vest of some sort underneath the robes, worn over the black tunic he had underneath. His bond was a plain, boring gray color, and he had a belt containing various pouches(many of the book-shaped) strapped along his waist beneath his robes.

He had been on his way to Mars to check out rumors of some Golden Age shielding tech. Bored out of his mind with no Silverhawk to drag him along on ridiculous adventures, he'd armored up into this Warlock combat gear, which he looked strange in, considering he hadn't worn such equipment during his dangerous mission for the cure. Perhaps, with that mission, he'd been confident enough to _not_ wear armor?

She really was overthinking this particular subject. She'd rather liked the look she'd met him in; that previously-faceless, nervous voice she'd heard from over the comms. Russet robes with too-big sleeves. A blue vest and a brown tunic, baggy, muddy pants and bare hands, a pure white feline cradled in his arms, hair all messy and glasses dirty. There'd been something... _cute_ about that, for some reason. She couldn't think of any other way to describe it, and she found herself blushing whenever she thought about that first moment, after slapping him and the Uldren in the backs of their heads, actually taking him in for the first time.

But...she supposed that his new look was actually quite... _dashing_? What the heck was she thinking?

When they'd made contact with the _Timey-Wimey_ , she'd invited the Warlock on board(though hoping he wouldn't crash his ship while landing it in the hangar), insisting that they might as well save him the fuel and the hassle of dealing with gross travel rations. Besides; for some reason, the concept of parting ways and continuing without him, leaving him behind, made her fell...lonely, somehow.

Curiously enough, Variks had been the first one on the scene when Martin had landed. He'd seemed quit eager to meet the Warlock, and had left for the hangar he moment she invited Martin aboard. And Martin had seemed oddly pleased to see Variks as well. She'd been more than a little confused, watching from a distance as the Fallen and the Guardian started off towards the hangar exit, talking like old pals. At least, it had seemed that way from where she'd been standing; Martin talking excitedly, Variks nodding and occasionally gesturing at a similarly hyper-active pace.

She'd followed them, which had led to the scene unfolding before her now.

They were laughing like mad-men. She'd thought she'd heard something frightful, out in the hallway; like Variks was chocking on his tongue or something. But _no_ , he was just _laughing_ , him and Martin both. For some reason, they were in total hysterics.

"An-and then t-the proton s-*hic*-said to the neutron..." Martin broke off, unable to control his voice and now overtaken by hiccups, which seemed, to both of them, to make the situation more funny. They were in Faroth's lab, sitting at a table where Faroth still had the electrified metal ball that Silverhawk had tried to mess with during her brief visit, Variks at one long end of the table while Martin stood along the edge next to the ball. Whatever science joke Martin had been telling, it probably had something to do with the fact that his sandy-brown hair was now poofing everywhere.

This assumption was confirmed to be wrong when Variks, weak with laughter, reached over with one lower arm and flicked the switch to the electric ball. Martin's hair began to settle, and they began to laugh even harder.

"What's so funny?" she asked, leaning against the doorway. She'd had no idea that Fallen could _laugh_. Much less get in the state Variks was in now.

"Ain't it elecr-ionic!" Martin burst before face-planting on the desk, pounding his fist on the surface. Petra let out a snort, rolling her eye. _Completely ignoring me._

Martin looked up at her, the two of them trying to calm themselves. Except, they both failed miserably. Martin snorted and continued laughing with renewed vigor, and Variks seemed unable to resist doing the same. Petra frowned, not seeing what as so funny about her.

"H-*hic*-her face! Her _face_!" Martin exclaimed, face hitting the desk once more.

Petra brought a hand up to her face, feeling the cover that hid her torn, scarred eye from view. Was it loose? Had she put it on wrong this morning? She glanced at her reflection in the pane of glass in the middle of one of the lab doors. Her face looked as normal as ever. But that didn't seem to stop them. Variks pounded on the desk with his fists, and Martin, already off balance, fell off his stool and behind the desk with a loud _thump_ , throwing them both into escalated hysterics.

"What? What about my face?" This yielded zero results. "What the heck is so hilarious about my face? You two are going to hurt yourselves if you don't settle down, you know?"

"What in blazes is that sound!?" came Faroth's voice from the hallway. The scientist ran up to the doors, grinding to a halt next to her. "It sounds like a torn record!"

"No. It's just Variks." she told him, nodding in the direction of the hysterical Fallen. "And Anton. For some reason, my face is hilarious."

"Huh. Didn't know the Fallen could have laugh attacks." he commented curiously, before his composure quickly switched to anger. "Wait; what were you two doing in my lab!?"

The scientist's rage seemed to goad them on even further, and Variks waved a hand hopelessly in the angry awoken's direction as he buried his face in his other arms upon the desk. Petra sighed, shaking her head.

 _This...is going to be an long, odd mission._

* * *

 **Not sure it I'm going to continue this or not. I'ma just post it as a one-shot till I decide. The funniest thing about this is that _This Is Sarcasm_ finally reviewed my new _Fever_ update, and claims she had a similar "laugh attack" in the middle of a school library upon reading Variks' new lines. Shame on you, Sarcasm.**

 **I couldn't NOT write this. I've been daydreaming a lot recently about Martin, Variks, and Petra, and I just had to write a scene with all of them in it before I went mad. Does this mean there will be more adventures with the three of them? Yes, there will, and yes, Variks will call Petra and Martin both out on their crushes for each other. Martin's totally transparent, but Petra's much harder to read; but not to Variks. He's a Fallen. He can tell.**

 **And he might just decide to take action... *grins evilly***

 **Speaking of Variks, I kind of owed him this after blowing him up and knocking him out at the end of _Fever_ and the prologue of _Heartbusters_. To those of you who donated waffles, this, THIS, this one-shot... is because of you, as well.**

 **Variks _would_ thank you for your donations, but he's too busy stuffing his face, and I'm just trying to find a Fallen-calibrated treadmill for all the calories you guys have given him. And now Martin's jealous.**

 **Martin loves waffles.**

 **Now, I might as well adress a VERY _SERIOUS_ problem while I'm at this; Variks and Uldren's names aren't on the character drop down list. We have freaking Xandar 44 on there, but we don't have Variks or Uldren. Not too serious a problem to those who don't use those characters often, but a very serious problem to those of us who do/will. If you know how to petition a character to be added to the drop-down list, let us all know in the review, so we can get Variks up there, and get Uldren's proper name on there as well. "Crow" is just really inaccurate. We've had his real name out in the open for two years now, but he's still referred to on here by his beta name.**

 **We kind of have to fix that.**

 **And RISE OF IRON OH MY uaw uyhtaidmkl;spweiqwheIT"S SO BEAUTIFUL THE WOLFIES AND THE FLAMING AXE AND THE ROCKET LAUNCHER ISALLLLEPIC! 5tyytytytyt67uyryfhr657*did NOT just bang her head on the keyboard repeatedly***

 **I keep getting PM's from fans saying how much the premise of RoI(deadly disease, locked away for years, Fallen get their hands on it*cept this time it really kind of backfired on them*) reminds them of _Fever_.**

 **I PREDICTED THE FUTURE! And I assure you, I'm still in school; I'm NOT on the Bungie team; I had NOTHING to do with this. But I can't help but wonder, what were Bungie Teamers reactions when they saw my fic? Was it "Oh, heck, do we have a leak?"**

 **But hey, biggest difference; my disease doesn't turn you into a mindless zombie(man, first the taken, now ANOTHER faction of zombiefied Fallen? We need something CHEERFUL to happen to the Fallen for once, like, a rescue mission to retrieve a lost member of Variks' house, or something, cuz I swear they have the WORST LUCK out of ANY of the Destiny enemies).**

 **I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT!**

 **Overexcited, and in much need of a potty break, don't forget to read and review.**

 **Cheers!**


	2. Petra's Mind

The _Cirrus_ set down on Mars, Martin's ship un-docking and parking a short distance away. Variks and Petra made their way down the ramp of the assault ship.

Variks walked down at a _very_ leisurely pace, as if stalling for more time to spend with his new Warlock "buddy". Martin was heading in the same general direction they were, but his goal was a small Clovis Bray facility roughly a mile from where the Wolves were.

"Guys! Wait up!" Martin came running up from his ship as they set out north. He was carrying a shotgun haphazardly in his arms, along with a sort of sack. "The Bray facility is right in the direction you're going; might as well hitch-hike!"

"What's the sack for?" Petra asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, it's not just data I'm after; I'm hoping to snag an old battery prototype, if I can find it. Maybe some other stuff, but I'm mostly after the battery." He pinched his fingers close together to indicate size. "Size of a pill, all the power of a nuclear reactor. I'm hoping to reverse engineer it."

"For what?" Variks asked curiously.

"Picture this," Martin said as they walked, "a whole defensive line of Defender Titans has just been breached, leaving a line of Nightstalkers exposed. It's a close-quarters situation in a building, with little room for their usual maneuverability. They get charged by minotaur's, and it tries to squish one of them, only for BAM—the Hunter holds up their wrist and they've got an instantaneous protective shield."

"Hmmmm. I assume this battery would power this personal shield, yes?" Variks pondered, sounding slightly excited. Martin's head bobbed up and down.

"Yup. To produce enough energy to create a solid barrier, you would need a constant and powerful source of energy. According to the files that led me here, the battery is self-sustaining; I won't get into explaining that, I only understand half the terms as of yet myself, but…"

And so it continued. Petra rolled her eyes as the two of them spoke science. She hadn't known Variks was so intelligent; sure, she knew he often built strange things, but she never took him for a Fallen of science.

 _At least he's better than most Splicers._ She thought. From what she heard over the next half hour, he had his moral boundaries. Boundaries that Splicers, the mad scientists of the Fallen Houses, didn't have. She supposed he could, in some ways, qualify as one, but most of his projects sounded like they were out of curiosity than for the sake of experimentation, and at some point his and Martin's topic of conversation turned to history, where the scribe reigned supreme.

 _Still, ought to keep an eye on him…_ They couldn't risk Variks going Splicer. An unchecked Fallen scientist in the Reef could prove disastrous.

"...which just goes to show, don't get between the British and their tea, because that usually how revolutions happen." Martin was saying as they neared what was probably his destination. He was talking about how Great Britain exited the European Union in the early twenty-first century.

"But in what way were the... French getting in the way of their tea?" Variks queried.

"Well, they raised the prices on teapots. By a lot. Basically. I don't even know if it was the French; so much has been lost. But I'm pretty sure it was the French." Martin said thoughtfully as they approached the building. Petra checked the timer on her wrist. They had approximately ten minutes until the artifact was in position. After that window passed, they had minimal chance of recovering it.

There was a large dun piled up against the building, witch was labeled, in faded paint, a Clovis Bray facility. There were several other duns forming a sort of sand wall, leading up to a flat, rocky sort of cliff, where her and Variks would be waiting for the artifact to make an appearance in an abandoned Cabal base below. Maybe Martin would help, once he was done, but it was unlikely; he didn't know the details of the mission, just that they "had their own business" to conduct.

"Martin, I take it this is the Clovis Bray thing you were looking for?" She asked, turning to face the Warlock. His face was turning red from the sun, and he was sweating, though not heavily. He looked up at the facility.

"Wheatly?" he asked. A red-shelled Ghost floated tenetivly out of his top pocket, and flew up to the faded paint, and scanned the rest of the faded lettering next to it. Finishing his scan, he zoomed back to his Guardian.

"C.B. testing facility Delta-4, as per the information. It's the one. Now, could we _please_ check the place for face spiders first? I really, _really_ don't want a repeat of the Venus incident..." his shell quivered, and he dashed back into Martin's pocket.

"Face spider? What is a... face spider?" Variks asked. Petra had to admit, she'd never heard of them before.

"They're a species of spider evolved from the Darkness. They're specifically evolved for climbing up closet doors, but they typically sleep in people's mattresses until midnight. I'm surprised you've never heard of them; space-faring ships and colonies are historically infested with them." he informed them with a small shutter.

Suddenly, Petra got the feeling she might not be sleeping as soundly tonight. Variks shifted uncomfortably, and Martin looked like he'd realized he'd dug himself into an awkward situation, his face turning that much redder.

"I, um, I'll be getting that battery now. Face spiders aren't all that dangerous. Besides, they hate warm climates. So uh... maybe I'll see you guys on the way back...?" he said lamely, shuffling towards the facility.

"Farewell, for the time being. Remain vigilant, yes? Old buildings have... many hazards." Variks told him. Martin nodded, taking off at a jog.

"Will do!" he called over his shoulder. Variks blinked in confusion.

"Do... what?" he muttered to himself confusedly. Petra rolled her eye as the Warlock disappeared, and began making her way up the hill, though with much difficulty. She was willing to begrudgingly admit that Variks was of some help to her in getting up the sand.

Once on the rocky cliff, she found herself looking down on an old Cabal base. Though, it was recently unoccupied; Cabal and Psions lay in a dead heap in a pile that was out of the way, and the Fallen had made short work of setting up shop here. Crates were piled in some places, and a few Dregs were doing various duties. Petra used the scope of the rifle she had slung across her back to look down on them all.

The base itself was tucked against the cliff, with a precarious-looking lookout sticking out over another small cliff, under which a wide river ran, the opposite shore a smoother slope of pebbles, rock, and sand.

Meanwhile, while Variks played watcher to the one-eyed Awoken, he set up a device to listen in on the Wolves' comms. Perhaps they could find out who the new Kell playing leader was. Suddenly, Petra spotted something she really didn't like; a Captain, leading a small crew over the dune a few meters away. She alerted Variks, and the two of them pressed themselves flat against the rock, hoping not to be seen. _What are they up to?_

"Hack their comms." she whispered. There was a clicking of claws pressing on the device, and immediately, she heard the sound of Fallen speaking over the comms. She made a frustrated noise; they were talking in a dialect she didn't recognize, though some of the words were similar.

After a few moments Variks let out an involuntary, alarmed yelping sound.

"What is it? What are they saying?" she asked in an urgent, hushed voice. He looked genuinely worried; at least, she thought that was what worried might look like on a Fallen. Their facial expressions weren't as ranged as a humanoid's.

"They are going into the Clovis Bray building!"

* * *

Martin hummed an energetic tune as he hacked the door. It would be quicker for his Ghost to do it, but he really just wanted the excuse to use his latest creation. In the palm of his hand, a rectangular bar frame, with the images and data projected within it. One press of a button, and a cord would shoot out into the data bank he aimed it at. Grant it, this cord was only three inches long.

Right now, he was bypassing the security protocols. He wiped sweat off his brow, and continued working. It was great seeing Variks again, and Petra. Honestly, he thought after the last time he'd seen Variks, the Fallen would want nothing to do with him, seeing as he's charged off with Silverhawk and completely forgotten to yell a farewell over his shoulder.

Actually, they seemed to be hitting a friendship off quite well. Martin could hardly believe it. Normal people usually avoided him if they could help it; he had built up a reputation over the years. Some knew him as being friends with that 'weirdo fedora lady', others knew him as 'that Orderless Warlock with the stunted Light', or 'that guy with no social skills whatsoever', and, sometimes, 'that one the War Cult want'.

It was all true, even the Future War Cult. His Light and social skills were so terrible, none of the orders really wanted him, and although Ikora was constantly pressing that he at least give the Skycast and/or Seawind Orders a try, he'd never plucked up enough courage to go and ask either of them. For a time, though, the Dead Orbit had expressed an annoying amount of interest in him because of his intelligence(how often do you come across someone with 180 IQ, even among Warlocks), but after a couple of years of vehement denials, they'd given up(though he still got the occasional propaganda pamphlet).

But it was the Future War Cult that had been gunning for him since before he even graduated. It sometimes got a little scary; you could only say 'no' to the War Cult so many times, even if they were a Guardian faction. They'd sent a meaty Titan to frighten him a few times, and he'd even gotten hit once, but that Titan had made himself scarce when Silverhawk and Cayde found out about it(the next day, though, they discovered Tevis had brought him in rather violently). It was one of the reasons he went along in so many field opps.

That, and he had to keep Silverhawk from doing something too stupid and risky. Of course, no Order and no Faction meant no funding; he was living off of whatever bounties he and Silverhawk completed when it came to inventions and supplies. He didn't really need to worry about housing; he was one of very few Guardians who would admit to still living with their mother. He had his own sort of basement (Silverhawk called it his 'nerd cave') in which he worked on his projects. Mostly, he just kept his blueprints in there, as well as anything he found in the field he could use. He rarely got to build anything completely, due to his lack of funds.

The only reason he didn't ally himself with anyone (though an alliance with New Monarchy could at least get the War Cult off his back with hiring him), was because he didn't want to risk any hard feelings leading to violence, and because, though accepting their offer would get them to stop bugging him, he was afraid when the War Cult might ask him to make. They were known for shifty business; he really wasn't sure he wanted to get involved with that.

For now, he was just excited to get his hands on a new piece of tech, and that he'd actually managed to make a friend somehow. With a Fallen, no less! He had never expected that. Sure, Variks had his flaws; as a Fallen, he was kind of stinky, his English was _not_ perfect, and then there was the whole 'metaphor thing', and every once in a while he'd say something rather violent, but he really was quite interesting. In fact, he was as bad with social interactions as Martin was, which probably contributed to how they were getting along so well.

"Aha! Got ya! Hmm. You'd think the Cabal would've broken a firewall this weak by now. I wonder why they haven't ransacked this place yet. Then again, I've never known the Cabal for their coding prowess. What do you think, Wheatly?" Martin asked, looking down at his pocket. The Ghost peeked out.

"I think the face spiders might like it down here in this nice, cool vault." he added his opinion in a quiet, fearful voice. Martin rolled his eyes, disconnecting his device and collapsing it in on itself as the vault opened.

He stuck his hand in to test the temperature, and found that it was rather cool this far in a cut-off underground area. He stepped in as the dirty lights flickered on in a struggle, and found it a little hard to breathe in a space that had been without fresh oxygen for such an extended amount of time. He took a moment to steady himself as a wave of dizziness crashed over him.

He counted to a minute, and went further in. The room was dominated by cylindrical monitors, three along each side. Aside from the lack of oxygen, it was remarkable well-preserved... though there were some cone-shaped webs that indicated face spiders actually _were_ a possible presence. He was scared of them; who wouldn't be? But so long as there was no lighting involved in a mission, he was all for putting his fear aside for the sake of discovery.

"Wheatly, help me clear out these monitors." he asked, pulling his device out again. He had it pre-set to search for the data markers they were looking for specifically, but he would take anything of else he found of interest as well. Perhaps he could find something for Variks and the other Reefborns to play with, in exchange for letting him hitch a ride.

"What about the face spiders?" the Ghost asked fearfully, looking from side to side near his pocket.

"Just go to the console next to me; if any face spiders do decide to show their faces, you'll be close enough for me to _blast_ them before they try anything." he reassured his companion. Wheatly nodded tentatively, and then floated off to the console next door while Martin hooked his own device up to the one in front of him.

As he began the download, he was certain he heard some sort of scuffling upstairs. _Face spiders on the ceiling?_ He was assaulted with the sudden imagination of a face spider dropping down on him from above, and he looked up fearfully. They weren't deadly by many accounts; mostly, they just fed off of fear, somewhat how Dementors from Harry Potter fed off emotions. But their venom could cause paralysis, and colonies of them tended to hunt for live food; mainly, of course, Humans.

 _We seem to be everyone's favorite menu item these days._ "Wheatly, check for life signs other than our own."

A few moments silence, and then a terrified gasp, and the Ghost zipped right back to his pocket from where he'd been hacking the other console.

"Twelve face spiders! _Twelve_! And Fallen life signs on the floor directly above us!" he announced fearfully. It was too much to hope he meant 'Fallen' as in a singular certain scribe.

"Tell me it's just Variks." he groaned. Destiny had a funny way of always being against him.

"There are seven life signs, and none of them are as healthy as Variks is! Half of them'll be dead in a year or two unless something else finishes them off!" the Ghost announced. _Of course! Just my luck!_ _It would've been nice for Variks and Petra to mention there were Fallen involved with their mission!_ Then again, perhaps they hadn't known the Fallen were there. He'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

He gripped his hair with both hands, panicking. He had no tactical advantages whatsoever in this situation! He really wished Silverhawk were here. They just _had_ to go and get caught by Terra-27, didn't they?

He unstrapped his shotgun, and checked to make sure it was loaded and prepped. He looked around for anything that might be useful, anywhere he might be able to hide. He remembered Variks stating how far the Fallen sense of smell ranged, and he looked around for anything that might confuse their noses. Perhaps if he disguised his smell, and hid well enough, they might come and go without even noticing him.

His eyes found a door near the back of the facility. He unhooked his device, which he still really needed to come up with a name for, and ran for it. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. There was no time to crack it; wincing, and looking away, he pointed his shotgun at the lock and fired. He jumped back as the lock broke, pellets and sparks flying.

Shakily, he ran into the room and slammed the door behind him. He wondered if the Fallen had heard that.

"Martin, two more life signs just entered the building; one Awoken, one very healthy Fallen. He should life for about two more decades, if Fallen years really are like dog years." Wheatly announced. Martin winced at the reminder that Variks's lifespan was half his own, and looked around the room frantically for anything that could give him an edge. Petra and Variks were here now; help was coming. But with his usual luck, it probably wouldn't come soon enough.

He had to act now. _Okay, so Variks says that some aspects of Fallen vision is based on heat signatures… if I start a fire, could it confuse them and block their sense of smell? I'd have to get out pretty fast, so I don't get knocked out by the smoke…_

He was the soundest idea he had as of yet. He saw some chemicals that he could start a blaze with if he concentrated his Light hard enough. He let out a groan through his teeth. _Oh, I'm going to regret this aren't I!_

He went forwards and pulled the chemicals off of the rack, and poured them on the floor in the back of the room. This was getting more dangerous by the moment; his nose was assaulted by the dizzying smell of the stuff he was pouring out. The label was so faded, he couldn't tell exactly what it was, but the 'flammable' warning was still printed clear on one part of it. He felt a bit dizzy, and if he wasn't fast enough with his plan, he'd be unconscious-or dead-before Petra and Variks could reach him. Or worse; taken hostage by the Fallen. He heard they reveled in slowly breaking your legs while torturing you for information.

Biting his lip, he held his free hand over the pool of chemicals, breathing minimally, concentrating. He managed to send his Light coursing up his arm, and a spark of void Light was all it to set the puddle ablaze. He immediately backed away, and heard Fallen yelling outside in their native language.

Still holding his breath as best he could, he fanned the flames, and then sat with his gun at the ready near the door. _Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work…_

The door creaked open, and he saw blue armor. He fired, and the Vandal let out a screech of pain and surprise as it was slammed against the doorway, before slumping to the ground, dead. More Fallen started yelling. He could hear gunfire from somewhere outside the console room. Unable to hold his breath and bear the fumes any longer, he turned the corner and ran out the door, ducking behind one of the consoles.

He shot another Vandal as it rounded the corner, shock blades raised to strike. Terror pounded through him, and he was certain the Fallen could smell his fear, even through the fumes and growing smoke of the fire. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't feeling lightheaded from the fumes.

Something went click-clack in his ear, and he turned his head…

To come face-to-face with a face spider. It looked like an eyeless, noiseless, bald child's head with legs. A thin mouth parted four ways to reveal fangs and a set of pincers the size of his hands as is screamed at him. _NOPE!_ He screamed, aimed and fired, before running out from behind cover.

Big mistake.

Before he could react, a heavy force slammed into him. His gun went off, managing to destroy the Captain's shrapnel launcher. But it was no matter to the large Fallen. Pinning Martin's arms to his chest with his lower hands, he wrapped his upper ones around the Warlock's throat. Martin thrashed beneath him, kicking out, trying to dislodge him as the larger being crushed his throat. His mouth gawked open, and he struggled and failed to suck in air.

The Fallen pressed harder, and Martin's vision began to fade, all strength in his limbs failing. Black smoke gathered, swirling around the ceiling, and the sound of the fire became muffled as reality ran away from him. He could feel his windpipe trying to do its job, only to continue to fail, only a struggled, final choking noise escaping his lips as he lost the strength to keep his eyes open.

Was this it? Was this _really_ how everything ended?

 _Figures, its death by strangling!_

* * *

Petra checked around the corner, before signaling the all clear to Variks. The two of them entered the building silently. She could hear the Fallen up ahead talking to one another as she and the scribe snuck through the edge of the room. The group was moving down to a lower level. She drew her sidearm, and approached the stairs they had taken.

She checked the entrance, pointing down the way. She looked up at Variks. He had his shock pistol drawn in one lower hand, and his upper arms were poised to strike if need be.

"I can smell Martin's scent trail; it leads down there as well. Would be best to stop them before they reach him, yes?" the Fallen informed her. Was it just her, or was that a slight tone of apprehension in his voice?

With a nod, she aimed down the stairway and began to descend. They didn't want to spook the Fallen; if they took Martin hostage, they could kill him in an instant. She walked carefully, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled with unease with each step she took on the aging metal. It was hard for her to trust the infrastructure of this old building.

A sudden growl up ahead made them stop.

"They have our scent." Variks said quietly. She nodded, sidearm still raised and pointed at the next open point in front of them. "Best to attack now, gain advantage."

Petra ran. Whirling around the corner, she quickly assessed the field situation; the Captain and two Vandals were nowhere to be seen, the other four standing between her and the door near the back of the room they had likely gone through. As if to confirm this theory, she heard the sound of a shotgun going off from somewhere beyond the doorway. She fired off three shots, killing one of the Vandals. The remaining ones hissed at her, and the Captain shouted something at his crew before disappearing behind the door with his two Vandals.

Beside her, Variks leapt out, hissing angrily in a challenge as the remaining three Fallen open fired. Petra ducked back behind the corner, but Variks rolled behind a boiler before jumping out and engaging the nearest Vandal in claw-to-claw combat, wrenching the wire rifle out of their hands and throwing it to the side.

Petra broke cover to fire at another Vandal as they turned their focus to Variks, all four Fallen yelling and barking in their native tongue, likely casting the scribe an assortment of various insults. She clipped the Vandal's shoulder with one round, and hit him square in the chest with the other as Variks snapped the neck of his rival, and brought his metal claws down hard on the remaining one's shoulder as another gunshot from the other room caught her attention.

She made a break for the door, but the Vandal she'd shot wasn't down yet; he caught her by the ankle, and she fell as a girlish scream of fear came from the room, no doubt Martin. She aimed, and shot the Vandal in the face as it tried- and failed, obviously- to stab her in the hip with its shock blade. She scrambled to her feet as Variks wrestled with the final enemy, who did not seem the least bit hampered by its wound.

Confident the House of Judgment Vandal could finish the fight on his own, she ran for the door, through a short hallway, and into a large hall with several doors in it. She could smell fire; a chemical fire, judging by the odor of it, and one large door near the back of the room was open, wisps of smoke within it. Found him.

She ran into the room, a large, spacious area with cylindrical consoles lined up against the walls…

To see the Captain throttling Martin. _No!_

She took aim and fired, once, twice, four times. Each bullet hit its mark, and the large Fallen jerked off his victim with a screech of pain. She fired two more shots, and he fell to the metal ground, dead. She ran forwards. The air was growing thicker with smoke by the moment, and she coughed at the rancid smell of blazing chemicals, the fire appearing to be coming from a small room in the back, through which she could see the blaze.

"Martin!" There were several rather ominous scratches on his neck from the Captain's claws, and he was initially unresponsive when she reached him, though he began gasping, coughing, and retching when she shoved the corpse off of his chest. Putting her gun to the side, she loosened the collar of his robes so he could breathe easier.

His eyes flickered open confusedly, and immediately went wide with fear at the sight of her, still gasping.

"Are-are you an angel?" eyes growing wider and voice raising in pitch all the while. "Am I _dead_!?"

 _Wh-what?_ Her mind flustered, face growing hot, though not because of the fire and raising temperature. She slugged him in the shoulder, causing him to cough with a yelp.

"It wouldn't have hurt if you were dead." She told him roughly. There was an ominous cracking noise from the flaming room. _Sorry; no time to recover!_ She grabbed the still-panting Warlock by the arm and jerked him to his feet with a yelp, making a break for the door, practically dragging him.

Variks appeared in the doorway, looking somewhat roughed up but otherwise uninjured.

"What did you set to burn? Cannot even smell myself through this stink!" he asked as they ran to him.

"Variks, down!" Petra yelled. The scribe yelped, catching what she was implying, and all three of them made a break for the exit. They didn't make it far before the explosion roared like a thunderclap behind them, and she threw herself and Martin to the ground, Variks landing on top of them, knocking the wind out of her.

Coughing, all three of them lifted their heads and looked behind them, to see the flaming console room pouring out smoke, the walls, floor, and ceiling blackened by the blast. A large piece of metal had landed dangerously close by, and one jagged strip would likely have skewered Martin had he not ducked in time.

Variks rolled off of them, and Petra yelped and shot him a glare as one of his elbows dug into her spine.

"What _did_ you set on fire?" he asked again, wheezing slightly and regaining his footing.

"I don't know." Martin panted, coughing, as he got shakily to his feet with Petra. "The label was all faded; I could only make out 'flammable'. I had no idea it would explode."

The Fallen shook his head with an odd grinding noise. "Whatever it was, it is messing with my head. We should leave this place, yes?"

"As fast as we can." Petra agreed. _Before it explodes a second time._

The scribe was all too happy to lead the way, Martin casting one last mournful glance at the blazing, smoldering ruin he'd hoped to find tech in, panting and coughing and still slightly uneven on his feet as they evacuated the building, leaving the bodies of the dead Fallen behind(though Variks cast one corpse a native insult as he passed).

It wasn't until they were leaving the building that Petra realized she and Martin were still holding hands. Face growing hot, in a way that had nothing to do with the Martian sun, she took her hand away, realization passing to Martin as well, the Warlock beginning to fidget with the cuffs of his gloves nervously.

"You should sit; breathe a little." She told him, clearing her throat and trying not to cough. He looked away nervously, face growing red, and went to sit in the shade of the building, still coughing.

Variks was up at the dune, throwing sand all over his head like a bird in a puddle.

"What are doing?" she asked.

"Attempting to rid myself of that FOUL smoke odor." He snarled angrily, snorting and rubbing his face frustratedly. "Cannot smell ANYTHING! Hate fire! I want it to DIE! _Shash k'tch ki_ (kill it dead) _!_ "

Petra rolled her eyes. And then a thought hit her, and something in her gut sank.

"The artifact!" she exclaimed as realization dawned on her. _If those Fallen didn't signal their commander during the attack, the others will surely have noticed they're missing by now!_ "If they didn't know we were on to them before, they'll certainly notice that fire once it goes hot enough! That's not even considering they've probably noticed their team's gone dark by now!"

" _S'shkra_! You are correct. Petra, we must not allow that artifact to reach the claws of House Wolves' new Kell. Would be… devastating." Variks urged. Martin, looking up at them from where he sat, got to his feet again.

"I'm really sorry about the fire. I could help you… i-if you want that is. I, uh, I might just, uh, get in the way of things, a-actually." The Warlock stuttered, shouldered hunching nervously. She looked him over. He was slightly singed, and even from here, she thought she could see bruises forming on his neck from where the Captain had tried to throttle him. Like herself, his breath wheezed in his chest, though more so.

 _It_ looks _like he's recovered enough to fight…_ And as much as she hated to admit it, they did need an extra person. He still had his shotgun. But… he'd come so close to dying just now. He'd been so still when she'd caught the first glimpse of the Captain on top of him, she'd been certain he was gone. And after the explosion, he certainly seemed a bit shaken.

"You are… certain?" Variks asked, sounding skeptical, looking the Warlock over, perhaps thinking the same things she was.

"Y-yes. Mostly. I'm fairly certain. After all, it's the least I can do for you guys for getting me out of there." He waved a hand slightly to indicate the building. Variks looked at Petra expectantly. She sighed.

"Very well." She resigned. "But if you start having trouble, you're to pull out immediately."

The Warlock nodded with a cough, and Variks shifted on his feet, making a sound of satisfaction. Suddenly, the Fallen scribe stood stiff, head jerking in the direction of the hill, alert.

"What is it?" Petra demanded.

"I can hear them; they are moving the artifact! Must act swiftly!" he informed them, before scrambling up the sand. Petra cursed under her breath and tried to follow him, though with difficulty.

"What artifact?" Martin asked as he, too, tried to climb the sand dune to little avail. Variks reached down to grab both of them by the arms, and hauled the two humanoids up to the rocks, leaving everyone ruffled and covered in sand.

"Old, Eliksni; deadly to Humans and Awoken." Variks explained as they caught their breath. "It is good you are both wearing gloves, yes?"

"Oh, yeah." Martin rasped, coughing. "Deadly artifacts. Fun. That was sarcasm, by the way. Deadly artifacts are _not good_. Cuz there was this really gross hive thing once, and-"

A loud bang from below, from the Cabal base, alerted them to the fact that the Fallen were mobilizing. Petra took the rifle off her back, and Variks growled, taking out his shock pistol while Martin shifted, raising his shotgun a little higher.

"I shall retrieve the artifact." Variks said. It was agiven that he should be the one to get it, considering they didn't know for certain gloves would protect her; or Martin, for that matter. She jerked her head towards the base.

"Get killing. I'll cover you." _I'll make sure you're true to your word._ "Martin, stick close and try not to get shot."

This didn't seem to give the Warlock any level of confidence. He shifted on his feet with a cough, gripping his gun a little tighter. His brow was furrowed worriedly, and the collar of his robes was still ruffled from when the Captain had tried to throttle him. He nodded slowly, and Variks went for the edge of the cliff.

Martin went to follow him, and Petra stopped him, one hand on his arm. She reached up and fixed his collar, and his face turned red as an apple.

"No Hunter would've let it go anytime soon if they saw you charge into a fight so ungroomed." she told him, one hand on his shoulder, satisfied that he looked a little less strangled now. She felt her face heating up as her eyes met his, and she pat him, directing him in Variks's direction. "Best get going."

As if to reinforce this, Variks's head popped over the edge of the cliff.

"Martin, Wolves will notice me on the cliff if I keep WAITING for you." he announced impatiently. Martin cleared his throat nervously, glancing back at Petra.

"Ahem, uh, er, yeah. yes, I'm, uh, I'm coming. Just, ah, c-coming." he said, backing away from her and turning abruptly to the Fallen. Petra ran to the cliffside as he put his gun over his back and lowered himself down after Variks.

She got down on her stomach, and looked through the scope. _Damn, they know we're close._ She could see a Baron shouting at several Vandals and Dregs. There was a Skiff nearby, to which they would no doubt escape if given the chance.

She took aim at the nearest Vandal and fired. They already knew she was coming; might as well draw first blood. The reaction was instantaneous; Fallen began scrambling, shouting in her general direction. The head of a Dreg passed through the scope, and she fired, before checking her surroundings briefly. This was dangerous; she didn't have a spotter.

She heard shotgun fire from below, and looked back through the scope. Her sights found the Captain, and she pulled the trigger. It hit him in the shoulder, but before she could fire again, a howl of warning from below called her name, and she looked in time to see a Vandal launch itself over the edge of the cliff a few feet away from her.

She jumped to her feet, taking out her sidearm and firing without a second thought. She looked back over the battlefield, to see Martin and Variks taking cover behind several crates; and working surprisingly well together. The scribe broke cover and hissed several insults while he shot at the other Fallen with his shock pistol, and Martin blasted several unlucky Dregs who were dumb enough to try to get close to them.

But the Fallen knew her position now, and, as the Humans would say, she was a sitting duck. She caught sight of a wire rifle charging up, and she leapt to the side at the last moment, feeling the heat of the energy beam on her cheek. _That was too close!_ She snatched up her rifle, slinging over her back once more, and opted not to climb down the cliff, but slide down a dune nearby.

 _Space urchins!_ She swore internally as she tripped on the descent and nearly fell over entirely. Recovering, she took aim and fired at a nearby Dreg that had probably thought it could sneak up on Martin and Variks by circling around the building completely. She ran to join them, diving behind cover next to Variks.

"Have you seen the artifact?" she asked, before ducking out and firing at several Fallen.

" _Hr'rea, esk vashka!_ (go drink Thrall spit)" the scribe snarled at the enemy, before adding. "No, I have not."

Suddenly, she became aware of the sound of Skiff engines. Variks hissed angrily.

"Hey, there's big guy coming out of the building, and he looks like he has something important." Martin announced. Petra followed his gaze and saw another Baron exiting the building, carrying a small package in one right hand, and dragging a small Vandal in mint blue armor with both his left ones. The Vandal was missing all but one of his arms, by which the Baron was dragging him.

"Variks, what house is he from?" Martin asked.

"House Waters; old, very small. Can smell his fear-scent. Have not heard anything of that House in a while. They are good at hiding, good at living on Mars without Cabal noticing." He informed them. "Perhaps House Rain artifact is the reason for this, yes?"

"Whatever the reason, don't let that Baron reach the Skiff!" Petra shouted. She broke cover, and ran forwards, shooting at every Fallen within sight. She ducked behind a crate to reload, and quickly realized this had been a mistake; there were far too many Fallen closing in on her, and she should have stayed with the other two. She cursed under her breath, and leaned out of cover to shoot, only to come face-to-face with a large Vandal wielding a pair of shock blades. _Space urchins!_

She pulled the trigger repetitively as it raised its blades and lunged to strike. It fell, dead, on top of her, and she found herself looking at the Baron they were after, a few feet away, as she lay winded and helpless beneath the corpse. Her gun arm was pinned by the Vandal's weight, and there was nothing she could do as the Baron threw the House of Water Vandal to the ground roughly, raised his shrapnel launcher, and—

And went up in an explosion of multi-colored light as Martin hurled an impromptu Nova Bomb at the Fallen without thinking. The House of Waters Vandal was blown up to the side, dead, and the artifact flew out of the Baron's hand as he was hit…

To fly right into Petra's head with the force of a bullet(at least, it felt like it). She gasped with pain as it hit her forehead, and she thought she heard Martin call her name as the world was suddenly sucked out of her.

Images flashed through her mind as pain like no other rolled up her spine, agony thrumming up her neck and into the back of her skull like war drums. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, her every sense was overwhelmed by the whirlwind of images and sensations that blew through her mind like a hurricane.

A pit dark as night.

A blond Hunter in a dark cloak throwing himself at a Scorch Cannon, then laying on the ground, chest blasted open, voice echoing through her head, telling her to run—no—telling Cayde-6 to run. Why would he-?

A young human girl with eyes glowing like the sky, like an Awoken.

Della Tay looming over Prince Uldren, a knife in one hand, missing an eye.

A black human man in ornate armor running desperately at a fast-closing set of doors, a woman similarly dressed preparing to press the trigger as they closed in front of her.

A raven flying side-by-side with a crow.

A huntress with pale, sandy-blond hair bleeding on the metal floor, the lighting suspiciously similar to the Reef.

Suddenly, she found herself dropped into utter silence. She turned, looking for anyone anything, something to latch on to, desperate for the pain to stop, for the images to stop flying through her head, one after the other, faster and faster until she couldn't make them apart anymore.

She suddenly stood on the top of a mountain. Two Awoken, both Warlock Guardians. He stood up, taking the other one, a woman, with him, and then got down on one knee. He started saying something, reaching behind him to pull out a knife—wait, no, a small box, speaking as he opened it. Petra moved closer, trying to hear.

"…raven… you marry…?" his voice sounded like she was listening from underwater, and when the woman answered, smile splitting her features, Petra couldn't hear her at all, and their faces were so blurred, she couldn't make them out. The visons continued, the mountaintop and sunset swirling away forever, lost to time.

She still couldn't breathe. The visions were still coming fast, now, but they were muffled. Was it because she was dying? It probably was. She didn't care. She ran to death, because it was relief from this horrible—

"Where will you run now, oh, mentor mine?" the voice was so dark, crisp, loud and clear and full of hatred, she wondered if they could even exist. Suddenly, she could breathe again, and she gasped, gulping in air and greedy for oxygen like she never had before. The visons suddenly began to break up, like interference in a communication screen.

"Petra? Petra!" it was Martin, and he came into view, skidding to his knees at her side.

A jagged cut on the left side of his face. He flew through the air, void cracking at his fingertips, at a blot of pure dark.

"Petra, are you okay?" he shook her by the shoulders, and she grabbed him by the arm, trying to anchor herself to reality and not get swept away by the retreating tides of chaos.

Blood on her hands, agony in her leg-WHERE WAS HER LEG-agony inside of her.

"You're…real…" she panted, not sure if it was a question, or her telling herself that this was reality, that he was a solid object.

"Um… yeah. Yeah, I'm… I'm real." He reassured her. She shut her eye to the chaos, still gasping, trying to steel herself against the chaos.

"Get her behind cover!" Variks's rattling voice ordered.

Variks with Awoken blood on his metal claws, Variks blindly lashing out at lightning in a cavern soaked in Darkness.

Prince Uldren screaming to the night sky, at a lake reflecting stars, dropping to his knees in anguish.

A woman with fire for eyes, with vengeance in her heart.

Silverhawk screaming in agony, in a room of faded white.

She felt Martin lift her by the shoulders, and her legs kicked at the ground to walk instinctively. He guided her behind some form of cover. She groaned as another vision pounded at the back of her skull, squeezing his hand as she tried to stop it coming, only to fail miserably.

"I would never have helped him if I had known. I would never hurt you, like that. I would have killed him myself." A gruff but gentle voice insisted. Petra thought she could hear soft sobs from the same vicinity.

She pressed herself against the Warlock next to her. The sounds of battle were still nearby, gradually fading back to her. She shied back in on herself as another vision flashed before her.

Cayde-6 looking out over the mountains, a fellow Hunter at his side, the other man an Awoken, having a haunted look on their face.

She tried to control her breathing, force the visions down. Several more flashed through her mind, and she shut her eye tight, pressing her face into Martin's shoulder. Her spine quaked and strained as if she were carrying a great weight, and spasms rolled up her back right to her skull, each one ending with a vision.

Herself… sinking into dark water, bubbles streaming from her lips, wires sparking around her, the water foggy with silt and sand.

A whimper escaped her lips, and some part in the very back of her mind wondered if she might break Martin's hand if she squeezed any harder. He was saying something, things she couldn't catch, but his voice was gentle, and she tried to focus on it instead of the visions, but nothing worked.

She let out a choked noise as an image of him being struck dead by lightning flashed through her head.

And as suddenly as they had crashed through her life and rampaged through her mind, the visions were gone. A sudden exhaustion slammed down on every part of her being, and for a few moments, she felt faint. It felt like her blood itself had turned to ice. She could barely move, so she focused on breathing, and steadying herself.

 _We don't have time for this._ She thought dizzily. They were in the middle of a battle. She needed to fight, not flop around like a limp, dead animal. She tried to ask for her gun, but it came out as a mumble. She was so cold, it was like she had hypothermia… but she was in the middle of a desert? No, Uldren was in the middle of the desert, Uldren and that sandy-blond woman—wait no. Yes. No. No, it was her in the middle of the desert.

"What happened?" she managed to moan, not opening her eye. She became suddenly aware of a second presence at her other side; Variks, no doubt. She thought she could hear his shock pistol going off. At least, she hoped that was his shock pistol. She also hoped he didn't shoot that one Warlock-wait, no, shooting that Warlock was the only way to save… who were they trying to save?

Her brain was running circles around itself, trying to make out what was reality and what had been dream. Or maybe the dreams had been realities she hadn't known of before.

"Y-you… you got hit by the artifact. In the head. And then it was like you were having a seizure of some sort." Martin said, sounding afraid. Or was it worried? Both? She couldn't tell.

"Yes, you were FREAKING us OUT." Variks added helpfully in his loud, _helpful_ way. "But you seem to have recovered, since I broke the artifact, yes? But then it tried to kill US. I killed it back."

"He smashed it, it blew up in our faces, so he smashed it again for good measure." Martin clarified. _Damn it! Space urchins!_ Their mission was a failure; the artifact was destroyed.

"Damn it." she whispered angrily. If only she hadn't run out of cover!

"Thought it might be way to stop it from killing you; had no choice in the matter." Variks continued. "But, it is better it is destroyed by me, then in the claws of the Wolves, yes?"

Part of her considered whether or not it was his intention to destroy the artifact all along. Part of her remembered a vision... he had blood on his claws. Or did he? She couldn't remember. As swiftly as they had come, the visions were slipping from her mind like water between her fingers.

Suddenly, a steady, soothing heat rose from Martin's body, sinking into her bones and banishing the cold that had gripped her. Her muscles suddenly felt relaxed, and the sleep that had been tugging at her mind turned into less of a cold-induced grogginess and more of a warm, pleasant desire to rest.

Looking at Martin, she saw that he'd taken on a sort of golden glow, and there was a sort of warm fire behind his eyes. _Must be a Warlock thing..._ All she knew was that her mind suddenly felt sharper, that her migraine faded into a manageable ache, and that Variks flipped out soon afterwards.

Petra and Martin both yelped with surprise as he grabbed them and ran several feet before an explosion sent all three of them flying a short distance. They slid across the sand, and the glow faded from Martin's body, the impact knocking her to her senses, adrenaline coursing through her.

Looking up, she saw the Warlock lifting his head, hair covered in sand, and Variks scrambling to his feet, hissing angrily in the direction of the Captain that had fired the shot. Petra looked around wildly, spitting out sand, searching for her sidearm.

"Where's my gun?" she asked aloud, her voice still shaky. Martin stuttered, tripping over his tongue. The Captain with the Scorch Cannon was-

 _Scorch Cannon!_ Her limbs froze with horror and anguish as her mind replayed _that_ moment, the one that would stay stuck in her head-Or was it someone else's?-no matter how many years passed. _Brask!_

"Wh-what did you just say?" Martin stuttered suddenly, eyes wide with shock. Had she spoken aloud? Wait... what had she said again? What had she been thinking about mere moments before?

"Where's my gun?" she repeated the last thing she remembered saying. He didn't respond, and his bottom jaw trembled, and there was a strange look in his eyes.

"Here!" Variks called, and she looked in time for her reflexes to kick in. Her hand shot out almost mechanically, catching the sidearm he'd thrown in her direction. Just like Martin would throw him the mace just in the nick of time. She blinked, jerking her head try try to clear it of odd thoughts that didn't exist.

She took aim, and fired at a Vandal that had been targeting Martin before it could fire. The second Baron was making a break for it, running towards the lookout over the river as the Skiff took off to hover just next to it. Many of the Fallen seemed to be targeting Variks in particular with extreme prejudice—no surprises there, they all knew who he was—and although there were much less of them now, there was no way the Vandal could stop the Baron.

It would be up to her to finish the job.

She leapt to her feet, adrenaline flooding through her veins, the weakness brought on by the artifact all but forgotten; Martin's fire had burned it away. She was Petra Venj, warrior of the Reef, and no simple artifact, no earth-shattering vision, could stop her. With the rest of the Fallen focused on Variks, she ran for the Baron. Sure, the last time she'd made a run for it, it had resulted in a vision-induced seizure, but the artifact was gone now; there was now only the very simple and avoidable danger of being shot.

"Petra!" Martin yelled as she ran after the Baron. _You are_ not _getting away from me!_ This mission had to have some sort of success to it; they may have lost the artifact, but killing a member of the Wolf hierarchy would certainly make up for it.

She shot at it as she ran, pausing only to fire at a Vandal that got too close for comfort. There was a sound of a shotgun going off at some point close behind her, and she didn't need to look to know that Martin was following her.

When she reached the entrance of the lookout, it was to see the Baron climbing out through the long window that wrapped around the room, as per Cabal architecture, though his technique was rather lopsided, as he was so big. _What an idiot! Fallen can't swim!_ Part of her reasoned that the Skiff would transmat him up before he hit the water. Maybe Variks could learn to swim, if he really tried, but four arms made swimming a cumbersome process, so most never bothered to learn. That, and though their masks kept ether in, they keep other things out, and any liquid that got through got caught in the seal.

She shot at the Baron, but he pushed himself over the edge and her bullets flew over him harmlessly. She swore out loud and ran to the window. Looking down and seeing nothing, she swore again, pounding her fist on the edge of the bottom part.

Suddenly, a blast from what must have been the Skiffs main guns rocked the lookout. Petra whirled around as the platform pitched dangerously beneath her. Martin was at the doorway, and he too turned around, as the sound of snapping steel cables, which had anchored the lookout to the edge of the cliff, filled the air.

Both of them made to run out, panic racing through her, heart pounding in her chest. The sound of another cable snapping, but this time accompanied by an outcry of pain, and she saw the flash of sun on metal as the cable lashed against Martin's chest, sending him backwards with a loud, ominous, crack.

"Martin!" she caught him as he staggered backwards with a gasping cough. Another blast from the Skiff rocked the lookout, sending both of them to the floor. She thought she heard Variks yelling panickedly as she staggered trying to pull the winded Martin to his feet.

Then, the lookout began to slide off the cliff. She twisted to look behind her, through the window, and saw the water far below, crumbling rocks splashing into it. The last thing she saw on the land was the Vandal running towards them, as the enemy Fallen had been transmatted into the Skiff along with the Baron.

She tried to run for the entrance, which was so close, but the lookout heaved violently before plummeting below in a wreckage of metal, cable, and rock. She tried to shove Martin out the doorway, but he, too, was send down with her. Variks almost reached them, upper arms lashing out to try to grab them, but one metal claw merely caught on Martin's sleeve before the world was plunged into chaos and terror once more.

One fatal weakness of the Reefborn:

They couldn't swim.

The last thing she saw straight was Martin's form being engulfed by water as she screamed, unable to resist the instinct to voice her terror. Water filled her mouth, crashed against her from all sides, sucking her back with it, pushing her down, trapping her in the lookout as she thrashed, trying to find up, trying to figure out which way was down, trying to resist gasping for breath in a place where only water existed.

She was sent slamming into something in the lookout, multiple somethings, by the rushing water. Pain lanced through her with each impact, knocking what little remained of her breath out of her, she barely managed to keep her mouth shut, but it wouldn't matter, because the water rushed in through her nose instead. Shocked, for a few moments she did little more than just float there, surrounded by water, death, and terror. She wondered if Martin could swim. Would he be alright, as darkness pressed at the edges of her vision?

Instinct made her cough, choke, jerk and thrash for oxygen as water filled her lungs to the brim. She could see the bubbles coming from her mouth as she struggled to breath, only water meeting her lungs, which burned like fire as the liquid that wasn't supposed to be there invaded them. She tried to claw for the surface as her heartbeat slowed and consciousness drifted away from her. The entrance to the lookout was right in front of her.

But no matter how far she reached out, her hand was nowhere near it. Just like no matter how much she'd struggled, the air, the surface, was unreachable to her; it too far away, her too far gone.

The last thing she remembered thinking, was, for some reason, whether or not the sandy-haired girl from her vision would be alright.

* * *

She felt something.

It pressed down on her chest, hard. Then again. Why couldn't she breath? There was something laying heavy in her lungs.

Something she had to get rid of.

Petra heaved violently, coughing and gurgling and sputtering. Someone rolled her onto her side to make it easier for her as she retched, vomiting up river water all over the red-sanded shore. She gasped for breath, grateful for air like she never had been before, every limb feeling weak and shaky. Someone had their arm wrapped under her shoulder, to keep her from falling into her own puke.

Her throat and lungs felt raw, and her heart was fluttering in her chest, which felt like she'd been punched repetitively by a Cabal. Everywhere that she'd hit when the water had tossed her about hurt terribly, and the person she was with put a hand on her arm comfortingly as he eased her back to lay flat on the ground.

It was Martin.

Dripping wet, his glasses askew with the left lens cracked, shaking slightly (or maybe she was the one who was shaking), a bad-looking cut that had come from the snapping steel cable starting at his chest and ending at a point on his left shoulder, blood welling from it and blending with the water, the cable seeming to have ripped right through his light armor. His green eyes were wide as ever, as bright as ever, and filled with concern.

"Petra, you okay?" he asked worriedly.

"No, you idiot." She found herself rasping. "I drowned."

"I-I meant, now, are you okay? Li-like no c-concussions, or anything? Broken bones?" he stuttered, and she felt a tiny flash of guilt for lashing out. He _had_ just saved her, after all.

And with that thought, she suddenly felt very, very, very self-conscious.

"I don't think so." She managed to say, throat tight, voice raw. _He saved me. He saved me. I drowned, and he saved me._

"G-good. That's uh, t-that's good." He stuttered, a small shudder rolling up his body. His left hand reached instinctively towards his wound, but then fell away as if her were as self-conscious as she felt. Feeling like she ought to prove her health, she tried to sit up.

Her limbs still felt shaky, and almost every muscle in her body shrieked in protest and she pushed herself into a sitting position. The thought suddenly occurred to her that Variks had been very dangerously close to the edge of the cliff when the lookout fell in.

"Where's Variks?" she demanded, hating how her voice sounded at the moment. He looked at her suddenly, like someone startled out of a dream. He opened his mouth to reply, panic etched into his features, when a yell from the other side of the shore caught both their attentions.

For indeed, the other shore was where the cliff was, where the lookout had fallen from, and where Variks the (supposedly)loyal was currently stranded.

"You are both on the wrong side of the river!" he yelled again, louder this time.

"Yes! We can tell!" Martin called back, cupping his hands around his mouth so his voice would carry farther. She didn't miss his wince, or the way his voice seemed to hitch as he yelled. She wondered if the cable had hit him hard enough to break a rib.

"I have called the Cirrus down! I shall try to find a way across!" the scribe declared. He turned to leave, before hesitating and yelling back them again. "No more drowning! Do not DO THAT! That is NOT GOOD!"

"Got it!" Martin replied. Variks hesitated again, though this time she thought she could see his head tip in confusion before he seemed to disregard the Warlock's statement and left. As Variks vanished from sight, she thought she could hear the Cirrus breaking through mars's atmosphere above them. _This is going to be one heck of a report to give Uldren…_ Already, she dreaded explaining the details of what had happened, how the artifact had been destroyed, and how she had drowned.

Even more? She dreaded asking Martin to give her a detailed play-by-play on what had happened when she was unconscious(or dead- she was pretty sure she'd been dead). She tried not to picture him dragging her limp body through the water, her head lolling lifelessly against his shoulder. She tried not to think about bubbles streaming from her mouth as he pulled her to the surface.

She really, really, _really_ tried not to think about him giving her mouth-to-mouth, trying to resuscitate her, after hauling her onto the shore, exhausted from swimming with her deadweight trying to drag him down to the same, watery grave she'd entered.

She tried not to think about her being the cause of him drowning as well, if he had succumbed to that exhaustion. She had a host of things she was trying not to think about at the moment.

"Are you okay?" she ended up asking. The Warlock, unlike herself, was much more open about admitting pain or injury.

"No." he said forlornly, his hand going up to his chest again, this time to indicate his wound. "One of the cables snapped on my chest, it cut right through my armor. And I hit my head again, when the lookout fell in the water. It broke my glasses, and I nearly lost them. My chest really, _really_ hurts, though, mostly."

He tipped his head to the side, as if in thought, and then spoke again. "I think I have a hairline fracture in my left clavicle, and probably some severe bruising on my ribs. Medically speaking."

 _A broken collarbone, a gash in his chest, and bruised ribs._ She ended up voicing her next thought.

"How the heck did you swim with all that? _And_ me?" She asked. For someone as sensitive to pain as he was, saving a drowning victim and then swimming to the far shore with their limp body while suffering extreme pain seemed almost impossible.

"I-I think I was in shock." he stuttered, shoulders hunching slightly, nervously, looking at the ground and fidgeting with his sleeves. "Sometimes, when the b-body is in shock it d-doesn't register pain r-right away."

"Okay." She managed to say, taken aback by everything that had just happened. He edged a little closer to her, both of them shaking in silence as they waited for the assault ship to come down. Martin had a strange, painfully concentrated look on his face. She was about to ask what he was doing, when his body adapted the same odd glow as before. It was dull, but bright, like soft light, and when she leaned against him, the same odd warmth as before filled her again.

"What is that, anyway?" she asked, trying to focus on the warmth, and not the recent events. The visions, the drowning, all of it, she tried to throw into the fire.

"Radiance. It's a Warlock power, but I'm not really good at it. It's… kind of a mental block. I… well I've got bad memories of fire, let's just put it at that. Combined with the whole stunted Light thing, and I can't even light a candle." He said forlornly. "I can heat up my breakfast though. Some Warlocks, like the Pheonixsond Order, can heal mortal injuries with their solar Light, but for me it just works as a temporary pain reliever."

Silence.

"So… I'm going to feel all of this in the morning, aren't I?"

"Sorry."

The sound of the Cirrus filled the air. She was ready to go home.

* * *

"And I'm telling _you_ , Wheatly, stop being so negative!"

"You _are_ very UNHELPFUL right now. Some of the design, is better than none of it, yes?"

"I'm just saying, there's no way you can possibly hope to—"

Martin cut his Ghost off by grabbing him with and exasperated gasp, and stuffing him under his pillow.

"You've earned yourself a time out mister!" he declared, waving his finger at the pillow. "Now stay down there until I say otherwise. You know, I really ought to threaten to paint your shell pink. Pink is a very positive color."

"Colors cannot by positive, Martin. They do not have personalities." Variks pointed out.

"Metaphor, Variks." The Warlock rolled his eyes with amusement, putting on his T-shirt, as Faroth had finished wrapping his chest in bandages.

"Ah." The Vandal responded, handing the young Guardian his glasses when he felt blindly around the side table for them. He took them and affixed them to his face, blinking as his poor vision was corrected at last.

Martin was still wearing the same pants as before, dried by his Radiance complete with his combat boots, but his robes were discarded, and the bandages were still slightly visible beneath the thin, gray T-shirt all Guardians wore beneath their armor. On the infirmary bed on the Cirrus, laid out before him, were several data pads that he and Wheatly had filled with all the information they had managed to grab from the Clovis Bray facility before the Fallen had crashed their party.

On a bed at the opposite side of the room, just across from them, was Petra, who was asleep, monitored closely by Faroth. They weren't certain what the artifact had done do her; Martin had a strange sort of idea, but it was wild and theory-based.

He didn't know how it had happened. One moment he's fighting, the next, he throwing a Nova Bomb; perhaps Ikora was right, his block with the void was thinking too much, because he didn't remember thinking at all before he hurled the void-made projectile at the Baron that was threatening to shoot Petra. Then, he'd seen the artifact strike her in the head and skitter across the sand.

The Awoken warrior had let out a horrid gasping sound that could be heard even from where he and Variks had been standing. Upon rushing to her side and shoving the Vandal corpse off her, they'd discovered she wasn't breathing; though trying to, with weakening struggles to pull in air. Unable to think of anything else to do, perhaps, Variks had taken the artifact in one upper hand, and smashed it against a rock.

The resulting blast had sent them both flying at least three feet, and Faroth had had to extract small shards of red crystal from both of their bodies. Variks had smashed the artifact again, because it was making a horrible screeching noise, and it had felt like something was pulling at the back of Martin's mind, like a black hole trying to suck his thoughts in and spit something else out.

Petra had recovered soon after that. Remarkable fast, actually, though his Radiance might have had something to do with it more than natural resilience.

But when she'd utter Brask's name, with the same broken, anguished voice as Cayde had after his old mentor's death, Martin's blood had run cold. He'd never told her about Brask. Perhaps she'd heard of him, but the way she'd said his name… as if she had been one of the apprentices the Gunslinger had left behind all those years ago.

 _How would she know about Brask?_ He himself still missed the Hunter dearly, the carrier of his father's knife. _What did that artifact do to her? Did it show her Brask dying? Implant memories of watching the attack? But only Cayde and Tevis were there; no-one from the Reef saw the attack…_

But her body language when she saw the Scorch Cannon was largely supportive of this theory. Ever since she'd said Brask's name, he'd been sifting through the pieces in his head, trying to form the puzzle he'd been given. This was how Martin solved things; he thought of them as puzzles, and all the sudden the solutions fell together piece by piece as he matched the edges up in his mind.

He shifted the data pads around, a frown surfacing on his face. None of it made sense, but at the same time, that was the picture this puzzle was forming. He winced as the movement sent pain stinging through his cut. He did, indeed, have a fractured clavicle, and quite severe bruising as well. If he hadn't been wearing his robes, which used his Light to create resistibility to impacts, he might very well have ended up with broken ribs, and possibly could have died.

He was _very_ glad he'd decided to wear battle robes today instead of his usual causal 'all-purpose' robes, which protected from blunt force impacts but wouldn't have done much good against the snapping cables. They were good for maneuverability, but made poor armor, unless he was falling off his Sparrow again.

"Variks, do you know what exactly that artifact did? What it was meant to be used for?" he asked.

"Artifact was of House Rain origin." The scribe told him. "Extinct. No survivors; at least, that are known. House Rain Eliksni were prophecy-keepers. Had visions, wrote of future days. Many could not tell future from present, nor future from past. Some saw days to come, others saw days before, days that shaped everything that had happened since."

"Do not know what the artifact did. House Waters was using it; I know only that. Found House Banner, damaged, telling of artifact. It spoke of past and future. That it killed all but Eliksni. Would have killed Petra, had I not destroyed it, yes? Pity, that I never gained the opportunity to explore it further." He finished. Martin nodded, and motioned to the half-files he'd looted from Clovis Bray, resisting the shutter that threatened to roll up his spine at the mention of Petra dying.

He preferred not to think about that; it scared him, more that he acknowledged was proper. All things considering, an Awoken as prominent as her getting together with a Human would be a scandle to the isolationist Reefborn peoples.

"I know how _that_ feels!" he chuckled. He picked up a pad. "Half these terms, I'm not sure what they mean! It's all theoretical, experimental. I'll _need_ to spend a _long_ time in the Tower library to figure _all_ this out!"

He read a line, and scoffed. "Look at this!"

Showing Variks the pad, he went off in exasperation. "I'm not even sure if that's a real word! I don't even think I could pronounce it if I tried! What kind of word uses all twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, I mean, honestly!"

* * *

"Well, this is my stop. Thanks for the ride." Martin said nervously. Petra was awake, and feeling every ounce of mistreatment she'd suffered on Mars. It felt like she'd been run over by a Guardian Sparrow, and she had the worst recorded migraine in the history of migraines. Martin had his robes laid loosely over his shoulders, still cut up, and with a blood stain to further mark where he'd been hit.

There were bruises on his neck where the Captain had grabbed him, a few small cuts from the Fallen's claws, and he'd messed up the collar of his robes to better hide the markings ("My mom is gonna kill me when she finds out I nearly got throttled!").

Variks was next to her bed, looking out the window curiously. The _Cirrus_ was currently in the Tower hangar, the _Timey-Wimey_ being off-loaded into the Guardian docking bay. Uldren was going to have _so much_ fun with the paper work on this one.

"My pleasure. Try not to get shot at in the future, Martin. And if you do; make sure Silverhawk is around to save your sorry butt. There isn't always going to be a Reef Assault ship around to fetch you afterwards." She encouraged. His face turned red as a cherry. She was _really_ trying not to be rude because of her migraine.

Variks looked away from the window, and walked up to hold out one lower hand.

"Well see you again… soon, yes? We are friends now?" he asked, almost tentatively. Martin shook his hand, beaming cheerfully.

"Certainly, yes!" He said. "I'll stop by the Reef next chance I get permission!"

Variks made a pleased sound that could only be described as a purr; a sound rarely heard from a Fallen, by humanoid ears, as the creature were usually hell-bent on killing them. Wheatly came out of Martin's pocket.

"Martin, Silverhawk is spamming communications. I think it's going to be loud. Westley, as usual, is in on it. He's going to try overriding—yes, yes there he goes again, he's trying to override my comm command. We might want to go; Miss Venj probably won't be able to handle Silverhawk screaming into the comms. You know. With her migraine and all." The meek Ghost announced. Martin sighed, and seemed to gather himself.

"Well… by, guys!" he said, with a tiny, nervous wave. Looking at Petra, he looked like he was about to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it, turning to leave. Meanwhile, Variks made a confused sound.

"But… Petra is female." He said. Martin rolled his eyes with a chuckle, looking over his shoulder.

"It's just an expression, Variks!" he said, before walking out the door to the med bay. Both of them watched as the young, sandy-haired Warlock disappeared from sight. At that, a strange thought popped into her mind, but before she could grasp it in its entirety, it slipped between her fingers. When she tried to hold on, her migraine worsened, and the sensation of the feeling, the thought, was similar to when she'd been hit with the artifact.

At the thought of the artifact, she automatically tried to remembered what exactly had happened, what exactly she had seen, and she could catch snippets of what may have been information, but she couldn't remember. She couldn't remember any of the 'visions'. In fact, if not for the fact that Variks and Martin had witnessed it, she would be certain none of it had happened at all. She hadn't been hit.

For some reason, something kept her from telling Faroth and Variks what had truly happened when she was hit by the artifact. Since she knew it had happened, she couldn't say she was fine. She wanted to tell them she'd had visions, but at the same time she knew, for absolute certain, that this was a one-time thing; nothing would linger. The effects of the artifact were gone, she would never endure anything like that again.

So there was no need to worry them about it. She just said it stopped her from breathing, and gave her a headache.

That was it.

But something about the way Martin had looked at her when she said this, told her he didn't believe her. _Oh, well. It's not like we'll be seeing each other again soon. The Queen doesn't like foreign visitors._

But something told her otherwise.

"He is attracted to you." Variks suddenly said, breaking the silence, and shattering her thoughts. She looked up at him, eye snapping into a glare, and the Fallen looked down at her slyly.

"Don't be ridiculous." She snapped, face flushing a light purple.

"And you are attracted to him!" Variks laughed, in that unnatural laugh that she'd heard earlier, his voice taking on a teasing, almost sing-song tone. "Can smell it! You are _attracted_ to each other!"

" _Shut up_ Variks!" She snapped, face growing even more purple, heat flushing her cheeks. The Fallen Vandal only laughed harder, falling over onto the floor; still drunk with hilarity from earlier, or so it seemed. _That's not true!_ Her mind denied, thought she herself knew perfectly well that it was true.

Martin, she could get; that Warlock was completely transparent. But _her_!? How could that _Fallen_ see right through _HER_!?

The tone sounded through the ship to signal they were getting ready to lift off, and Variks scrambled to his feet, and rushed to the nearest window. Perhaps, upon seeing that that side wasn't facing the Traveler, he rushed to the other end of the ward, sticking his face against the glass to get a view of the 'Great Machine' and the city below it. He made an odd, excited, chittering noise upon sighting it.

Petra blinked. Laughing, getting all excited by a dormant AI of alien origin, befriending Martin Anton, who was perhaps the sweetest, most innocent person she'd ever met.

Petra Venj didn't trust Variks, of the House of Judgment.

She _still_ didn't trust Variks.

But now… maybe she _could_ trust Variks.

Someday.

* * *

It had been over a week, and she had been feeling fine.

Until now.

A headache pounded against the back of her skull. Wait. The pounding was coming from the back of her neck, not her skull; at the base, at that lump between neck and back, on the spine. She groaned, curling tighter in on herself on her bed.

She suddenly felt like she was going to vomit.

She ripped the covers off of herself, and staggered into the bathroom, hitting the lights, vision blurred. She nearly tripped over the toilet, and she leant against the sink, gripping it so hard her knuckles turned a pale, white-periwinkle color. Her hair was loose, messy, strands of it falling over her face.

Her left eye was gouged with a deep cut, the orb pale, milky, no longer glowing sky blue like it used to. The cut went through her eyelid, too, and part of the bridge of her nose; the shrapnel scar that her eye cover usually hid. All her scars stood out white against luminescent blue; her 'souvenir' from the mission that had resulted in torn City-reef relations.

The one time she'd failed to spot a grenade before it exploded. Her price, for her pride and foolishness.

Beads of sweat soaked her face and purple nightclothes. And she was having trouble breathing. She struggled to keep her lunch down. It felt like… no, it couldn't be.

 _There are no lasting effects. There are no lasting effects. The artifact is gone. There are not lasting… no lasting… no… lasting… no…_

She felt faint.

The pounding suddenly sprang up her neck and into her skull, and the vision slammed through her mind. She screamed, bending double over the sink. Her hands slipped, and she collapsed onto the floor, spasms rolling up her spine. She tried to suck in oxygen, but her lungs had gone tight, and her heartbeat fluctuated dangerously. Her single eye moved wildly, seeing pictures that weren't there, feeling emotions that weren't hers.

And just as her body as about to give in and die, she took in a wild breath, gulping in precious air, body going limp as her mind was released. She blinked wildly, and tried to lift herself off the floor, but her shaking, weak arms gave out. She shut her eyes tight in pain, and a whimper escaped ehr lips as the events she'd just witnessed replayed themselves in her head.

And assassin was coming, coming for her Queen. Not just any assassin; the deadliest on in the system.

But when she woke the next morning on the floor of her bathroom, covered in sweat and cold as ice, she would not remember that.

* * *

 **Okay, okay, I know this took a shamefully long time to complete. Please don't kill me. I was about halfway through this when the RoI announcement came out, and then I overhauled my entire subplot to accommodate it, and then RoI came out, and Festival of the Lost, and Iron Banner, and Heartbusters, and all that stuff.**

 **Basically, this all started out as a thing that began with some people getting drunk on laughter, and I decided to write a fic about laugh attacks. And then it turned into; oh, poop, Petra has VISIONS in cannon, how am I gonna accommodate that? So I decided; let's write my own version on how that happened.**

 **Because 'a lot of Reefborns have visions' is just boring to me. Let's make her special, in a good/bad kind of way. I mean, you've seen how these things affect her health; these visions are not healthy for her. And if you think Martin and Variks are gonna get out of any consequences for being that close to the blast from the artifact, you are SO WRONG!**

 **And yay! Brask Mcduffins! remember folks, we still have to solve THAT mystery! Let's just say, Brask's secret will come into a big play alter on.**

 **Pffft, you already know that. But just so you know; Cayde and Tevis WILL beat up Taniks at some point. That HAS to happen, and I think you guys are going to love it when it does.**

 **Anyway, This could be considered an 'intermission' between fever and Heartbusters. Hmm. Maybe I should write an Intermission fro Heartbusters and Wolfsbane... make it a thing... yeah. I think I'll do that.**

 **Speaking of Wolfsbane, that should be up sometime this week or next, depending on how much sleep I lose over the impending release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, so soon after Doctor Strange came out(saw that on Friday, BTW, it was awesome).**

 **On other topics, how do you guys like how I wrote Variks? This was really a dry run, a testing phase to see how you guys would react to the personality I've built for him in this universe; socially awkward, metaphorically and culturally challenged, occasionally loud, and occasionally violent.**

 **Because really, in any situation, Variks would be a social outcast. The Wolves would hate him for his betrayal, the Awoken would feel unsafe around him because he's a Fallen, and-lets face it-he is a little weird, for both species' standards.**

 **So, here we have the Variks of House Judgment that you guys'll come to know and love over the course of our adventure. I once said that he would be included a lot more in the future of this series; that future... is now.**

 **And with that, let the adventures of the Reef gang begin.**

 **Cheers!^^**


End file.
